


Snap Out Of It

by NewAllegroBeat



Series: Fluorescent Adolescence [1]
Category: Super Junior
Genre: AU, Angst, Domestic Violence, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, M/M, Past Violence, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 18:21:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2661821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NewAllegroBeat/pseuds/NewAllegroBeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s like a rupture in the structure of Lee DongHae’s universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In my head -and my WordDoc- this is a one-shot. I just posted it in two because it seemed better that way. Hope you enjoy it (Chuck knows I spent hours in it xd) c:

It’s like a rupture in the structure of Lee DongHae’s universe.

The moment he casually opens his curtain to let in the sunlight, he notices someone is moving into the apartment opposite his, where the two female college students used to give DongHae quite amusing drunken shows.

At first, he spares them a thought of nostalgia. Then, the door of the room opens and the new tenant enters, carrying a heavy looking box labeled ‘manhwa’.

And just like that, DongHae’s world crushes into pieces.

It’s _him_. He’s ash blond now, with shorter hair, and has a more mature edge to his features, but it’s him. DongHae’s seen that face in his wildest fantasies, his darkest nightmares; he knows it all too well.

The brunette screams so loudly he’s sure he’ll alarm Mrs. Park; however he can’t care less about his eighty-two year old neighbor when across a very narrow alley, right in front of his wide window, is the person he fears the most. He’s lucky he’s kneeling on the bed, because if he was standing he would have probably faltered already.

And this isn’t a coincidence—it _can’t_ be.

DongHae is _sure_ ; HyukJae has finally found him.

He’s not wrong, of course. Even if he doesn’t catch HyukJae’s knowing smirk, he can feel his presence washing over him heavily. It’s as if an old rope has returned to its place around his neck, and he can’t breathe at all. Not that he’s trying. Right now, he just wishes he was dead… or that _he_ was dead, which would be even better.

HyukJae, on the other hand, seems quite tranquil. He leaves the box on the mattress and opens the curtain-less window to wave at DongHae, the shiniest of smiles on his thick lips.

“Hey neighbor!”

“Go away!” DongHae shouts back, gripping the window frame so tightly his knuckles turn white.

“Why, is that a way to greet a new neighbor?” he speaks casually, calmly, and it gets to DongHae’s nerves just like it used to three years ago.

“Leave me alone!” he pleads, his eyes filling with frustration tears. “Please… please…” he backs away slowly, standing on shaky feet, trying to understand a world that keeps moving under his toes, and before he knows it he’s crying on his kitchen floor like his soul has been ripped apart.

 _No, no, no, it’s not him, it’s not, please, please…_ he repeats over and over like it’s going to stop history from unraveling. He says it because it’s the only thing he can do to remain mildly rational. He screams and cries and repeats calming words in hope they’ll become true until he falls asleep on the baby blue tiles.

 

Strange as it may sound, he doesn’t see HyukJae again after that, and the blonde doesn’t come knocking on his door like he’d imagined. Deep inside he’s naturally hurt and disappointed, but his most rational self can’t be more thankful.

Of course he keeps his curtains firmly shut, in hope that they will build a sort of wall between him and that person now living just a few meters away from him. He wishes never to encounter him, ever again if possible.

The thing about small towns, though, is that you just can’t even pretend to escape.

►§◄

 

 “Are you sure you’re okay? You look jumpy” Jessica notices, placing the cup of coffee in front of DongHae’s eyes, which are near table-level since he is pretty much slumped over the marble bar. 

“Well, life’s just gotten a bit harder for me” the brunette mumbles in the gloomiest voice the woman’s ever heard him. She looks at him with a raised eyebrow and worry all over her beautiful face, but DongHae just whines and asks “Jess, have I ever told you about my college sweetheart?”

The blonde is about to reply, when she gets called out by her boss for chatting at work. DongHae doesn’t know whether he should be relieved because he was about to make a huge mistake by involving his best friend in his ‘past’ issues or saddened because he most likely won’t gather the courage to talk about it a second time.

“Gotta go. Talk to you later, okay oppa?”

“Sure kiddo” DongHae groans, refocusing his attention on his steamy cup.

He certainly doesn’t need caffeine at all; he’s already been missing sleep and having… Unusual dreams when he did manage to visit Morpheus’s land, but it’s all he can do to keep himself at bay. Plus, he really needs to get these tests graded.

“Funny meeting you here.”

SHIT!

In his shock, DongHae manages to knock the heavy white ceramic cup down and have it spill _all over_ the papers (well, his sixth grade class has just won a batch of straight As for everyone), all this while HyukJae watches with the same entertained expression of the other day.

“Why are you so jumpy, Hae?

“I-I-I don’t-I… Hu-hu-hum…” _leave me alone, please, walk away. Don’t get any closer, please, I’m begging you._

“Can’t you say ‘hi’ to an old friend?”

DongHae is going to die like this, he’s sure. He’s having so much trouble breathing and his palms are so sweaty and his heart has swollen so much there’s nothing left for him but die.

“Hu-hu-hum… He…He…Hello, HyukJae” he manages to blurt out

“That’s my DongHae.”

And there’s something in the way he says it, slow and friendly, soft like a stroke in the cheek or whispered words against his neck, something, _something_ that makes DongHae’s heart rate drop and then rise in a second.

“HyukJae? One hazelnut latte to go?” the young barista shouts suddenly, holding a red to-go cup on his trained hands, thus breaking whatever spell that ‘something’ might have casted.

“Yes, that’s me. Well, see you later, _Hae_ ,” he takes his cup, and then _leans_ in to peck DongHae on the cheek, but just that, and it kills the brunette a little when he pulls back quickly and leaves.

Minutes after HyukJae’s left, DongHae’s heart is still racing and bumping against his chest violently. His hands are shaking and his body is heating and the force of HyukJae’s effect surprises him. He’d forgotten, he’d blocked it out to protect himself, but now it’s here and he can’t deny it.

“Oppa, you’re all red. Who was that?” Jessica teases as she passes him carrying an empty tray, mistaking his flustered state for something akin to ‘liking’ and ‘shyness’.

To be fair, she has no way to know DongHae’s not really the shy guy when it comes to relationships; DongHae hasn’t dated anyone in the three years he’s been living in this town, not even once, not even a small dinner-and-movie date—not that he never got the chance. He’d just confessed his homosexuality to his closest group of friends out of respect, that including Jessica, clarifying that he was just getting out of a complicated relationship and had no intentions of going out again. Two years have passed since then, and DongHae feels like he is finally making good progress, finally standing on steady grounds and beginning to forget and move on, _finally_...

Until that bastard of Lee HyukJae reappeared, that is.

“Wha-what? No, you’re wrong! He’s… nobody. That’s who he is.”

“Suuuure” she says, winking cutely and dragging the syllables playfully.

 

He stares at his class, thirty children concentrating on their Biology tests, too young to even begin to comprehend the messy depths of DongHae’s mind, and he grips the edge of his table harder. 

He’s normal. He’s normal.

_I’m normal._

He needs to repeat it until it sticks on his brain and his life, until not only his actions are normal but his soul can purify and become normal as well.

“Okay, time’s up. Hand in your test and leave, please.”

He’s Lee DongHae, twenty-eight year old Biology teacher Lee DongHae. He came to this town looking for quietness and ordinariness and it was what he was getting until… until _he_ arrived.

Worst part is HyukJae isn’t even _trying._ HyukJae is being breezy and casual, so casual DongHae can almost believe them meeting is really a twisted play of the destiny. Yet just knowing he’s there, so close to his reach, so obvious yet oblivious… It’s too much for DongHae’s fragile system.

“Hey! You work here?”

_No. Not here. Please, just… No._

He stands from the bus stop bench and smiles at HyukJae, determined not to lose against him this time.

“HyukJae? What are you…?”

“Oh, my studio will be here. I want to start taking patients as soon as I can. After all, there’s not that much work for a psychologist in such a small town.”

Psychologist? DongHae frowns. For a moment he’s so baffled he forgets he’s in front of his biggest downfall and acts as if he’s in front of his old best friend.

“Weren’t you about to take general MD exams?”

HyukJae nods casually, leaving on the floor a box identical to the one DongHae saw the other day when he was moving in, except this one is labeled ‘books’, and tucks his hands into his pockets. He seems relieved that DongHae is being _normal_ around him.

“I was, but after that my psychiatry specialization would have taken ages, and I needed to get out of university quickly.”

“Oh, money problems?”

The blonde chuckles and shakes his head.

“Don’t be silly. I had to come get you, of course.”

Blunt. Sincere. HyukJae.

DongHae smiles in spite of himself, feeling so incredibly happy he can’t even contain the way his blood starts rushing to his cheeks and his whole body flushes.

“I-That’s my… bus” he mumbles dumbly, indicating the blue vehicle a block away from them.

“If you want, I can give you a lift.”

“No, thanks. It’s fine.” _I’d rather walk my way back to Seoul before getting in a car alone with you._

In the end, he gets on the bus and even catches a seat by the window. Luckily, it’s on the other side and he can’t see HyukJae as the bus drives away. Nonetheless, he closes his eyes and he remembers HyukJae telling him he’d come to get him and sighs, content, relaxed, _happy_.

That night he dreams of soft French jazz melodies and strong arms around his chest.

 

It happens three weeks after that brief encounter.

It’s a lazy Thursday afternoon. DongHae is correcting homework while listening to the radio and drinking hot chocolate. He looks through the window and sighs; it’s most certainly going to rain, and he didn’t bring his umbrella. He should leave immediately and correct the homework at home, but for some reason he doesn’t.

He’s got his mind somewhere else.

In his apartment, actually.

He hasn’t seen HyukJae in twenty one days, and it tips him off a bit. He’s even started opening the curtain in the mornings like a regular being again, with the sole hope of catching a quick sight of HyukJae.

He sighs again. Why, why of all times…? No, it’s not a matter of timing. HyukJae is the HyukJae he was when they met, the same that occasionally runs into DongHae in this little town and the one he’ll continue being even if DongHae’s not there to watch him.

Well, that HyukJae apparently is not going to let DongHae _not_ be there.

“Hey, I have more than the driver’s seat, you know?” is HyukJae’s way of offering him a lift.

This time, HyukJae has taken the lead and is waiting for the brunette inside his car parked right in front of the school’s entrance. It’s beginning to rain, gingerly now, but DongHae knows by the time he gets off the bus and has to walk those three blocks to his apartment water will be pouring down heavily.

More importantly, he doesn’t really want to deny HyukJae, which makes everything harder—or easier, depending on the viewpoint.

DongHae remembers his thought of the other day, and almost snorts at how much his mind has changed since then. Maybe it’s not that it’s _changed,_ more like it has accepted DongHae’s inner wishes.

“Need help?” HyukJae leans across the passenger’s seat to open the car door, since apparently DongHae is shaking too much to manage himself.

“Thanks” he whispers in an awkward chipmunk voice as he slides into the old Audi he remembers so well.

HyukJae just watches him from the corner of his eye, attentive to his every move, yet he doesn’t say a word. It breaks DongHae’s patience, especially when the car’s engine starts and the brunette begins to ponder his choice as the trees, houses and short buildings start to blur behind his window.

_Oh my God, he’s not taking me home, is he? I’m so dumb. I should have never given in. Where are we…?_

“And we’re here. Can I walk you to the door? I have an umbrella.”

DongHae snaps out of his inner grieving to find himself exactly where he’s supposed to be—in the front porch of the small residential building he lives in. He turns to HyukJae, shock written all over his face as the blonde shrugs and puts on an innocent expression for him.

Now, it’s apparent even to DongHae that HyukJae is _pretending_ ; the latter knows exactly what the former is thinking (how could he not, when he knows DongHae better than DongHae knows himself), and his shock delights him.

“O-o-kay. Walk me.”

_Shit. This is bad._

HyukJae just smirks and gets out of the car, circling it to get to the other door and opening it for DongHae. He holds the umbrella steady over their heads, helping DongHae out with a subtle touch on his forearm, then on the small of his back. The brunette is too flustered to react, so all he does is follow HyukJae like a scared puppy to the wooden door.

The blonde doesn’t wait for him to take out his keys, he just lets go and turns around, ready to leave.

“Okay, see you later, Hae. Take care, yes?”

And he pecks his cheek again, except this time he lingers for half a second longer and the other melts a little against the cool bricks of the façade as HyukJae starts his car only to park it a few meters closer to his own apartment building.

When he gets off again, he enters without even checking if DongHae is still watching, and the brunette hates the sensation of void it sets free inside of him.

This is bad.

Very bad.

 

DongHae walks around his tiny living room with a glass of wine in his shaky hand. He’s dialing a number he’d sworn he’d never dial ever again in his life when he hears faint music coming from his bedroom and it scares the crap out of him. Still susceptible since his previous encounter with HyukJae, he takes the bottle of Merlot as a hopeful weapon and walks the short hallway to his room… to find it empty, with the lights on as he’d left them when he came to change from his work clothes to a white wifebeater and grey sweatpants.

The music, as he would’ve logically thought before HyukJae came back to mess with his head, is coming from the apartment in front of his.

He also recognizes the tune; it’s a soft edgy pop-rock song, sexy as hell, to which they fucked so many times DongHae can’t even begin to count.

He can’t help but wonder if HyukJae’s doing it on purpose or it’s just that he likes the song that much… No, it’s impossible that he doesn’t remember—it _has_ _to_ be intentional.

HyukJae however, is nowhere to be seen and the brunette kneels on his bed to open the window, taking half of his body outside in a silly attempt to get a peek of what the other might be doing. The chilly after-rain air cuts through his skin, reddening it yet at the same time acting as a calming balm for his agitated state of mind.

He takes the chance to scan HyukJae’s room, which is of course neat as a temple, with all the CDs, books and movies organized in a shelf above his desk. His bed has a light brown coverlet and beside it there is a night table with a reading lamp on it. There is nothing hanging from the walls, except a simple round black clock that tells DongHae he should be really going to sleep because it’s past midnight and he has work tomorrow. Even so, he can’t help but keep staring, waiting. There’s a certain attraction that room exerts over him, and he just can’t look away, he simply can’t because HyukJae could appear in any moment and then—

“What’s wrong DongHae?”

The brunette jumps in his spot, quickly focusing his sight into the figure that, just like him, is leaning out the window.

_Shit._

Now DongHae knows exactly what HyukJae was doing, if his naked dripping torso, his wet hair and the white towel dangling from his hips tied in a loose knot are any indications of ‘showering’.

DongHae bites his lip as he ogles HyukJae, his body reacting just from the sight. His sharp features ready to be traced, his full sensual lips DongHae used to ravage with such passion, his flat stomach subtly toned, his arms, his shoulder blades and collarbones… What is hiding out of his view, under the feathery towel; there isn’t a part of HyukJae’s body DongHae doesn’t adore, and it is plain cruel for HyukJae to flaunt it like that.

It is pure _torture,_ and still DongHae can’t walk away from it. Neither can he gather the courage to ask HyukJae to come over to his house, so he is pretty much frozen and lost in a virtual tour of HyukJae’s skin.

“DongHae? I know I’m hot, but say something at least.”

“I-I’m def-definitely not falling for that! Do you hear me? So go away!” he shouts before snapping the window closed altogether with the drapes.

He hears HyukJae’s laugh and he doesn’t know who he hates more, HyukJae or himself, because now he’s so horny he can barely take it, and the stupid song keeps replaying behind his closed eyelids altogether with the image of naked HyukJae staring at him with that superiority glint in his eyes.

Not only that, but also locked memories start to break free as he remembers how talented HyukJae is with his hips, or how he moans if you bite that spot in the sharpest of his collarbone, and it’s more than he can take.

Cursing under his breath, he lies on the bed and spreads his legs, overly conscious that HyukJae is just next door, just a few meters away, probably waiting for his call.  He can’t help it; he can’t stop his hand when it travels under his underwear to grasp his half-hard penis and starts working it expertly, the random thought of an eight years younger HyukJae shyly blowing him for the first time fueling his lust to an unbearable point.

 _HyukJae, fuck_ he thinks, or moans, or he doesn’t quite know because he’s totally into it now, one hand squeezing his balls while the other pinches a nipple while the HyukJae of his imagination spreads him open and is ready to fuck him. 

A little bit more, just a bit…

“What the fuck?” DongHae screams in frustration when his very chirpy ringtone goes off and, obeying his policy of always answering a phone call, he stops what he’s doing to fetch the white iPhone.

The voice at the other side of the line comes low and husky, breathy and silky at the same time; wanting, yearning.

_“I know what you’re doing, Hae.”_

It’s like a shock of pleasure for his body, and he tries to remain scandalized even in this foggy, confused state.

“How did you get my number?!” his voice is hoarse and it cracks lamely due to the effort of trying to sound angry.

HyukJae chuckles, so loud he hears it both over the phone and across the alley.

_“You continue to forget why I came here in the first place, right? You, my darling, are my sole purpose. Why won’t you let me see you? You’re so selfish. I want to see your pretty face when you get off.”_

“Sh-shut up…” _No, keep talking to me. I need you so much._

_“Please?”_

“N-n-no.”

When did his hand start moving again? Why can’t he stop? Why, after so much time, so much water under the bridge, he still can’t get over that freaking _power_ HyukJae has over him?

_“Why not? Isn’t it me who you’re thinking of…? Don’t you want me there between your legs, my mouth sucking your cock while I finger fuck you?”_

“Ngh… HyukJae…”

_“Be good, Hae. Come to the window.”_

And he’d be damned, but he does. Thighs trembling with embarrassment and want, he manages to kneel again on the bed and crawl until his hand comes in contact with the cold glass. He slides it open, the breeze hitting him even harder now.

He doesn’t even notice, though. Because there, there is HyukJae, his chin resting on his hand, staring at him with intense glare he so well remembers, the edges of his mouth curved upwards ever so slightly.  The blonde doesn’t say anything. He just waits for DongHae to move, never removing his eyes from the brunette’s body. 

“Fuck you” DongHae mumbles as he clutches the window sill with one hand as the other travels between his legs and resumes its previous task.

All the time, HyukJae deliberately watches him without even blinking.

All the time, DongHae keeps his eyes firmly shut in a futile attempt to ignore the other’s presence.

Few moments later, when he finally gets his release, his back arches pitifully as he bites into his hand to refrain from calling HyukJae’s name. The upper half of his body slumps against the window frame, exhausted… more than that, _defeated_.

 _Good boy_ HyukJae mouths, licking his lips hungrily. He blows DongHae a kiss with his hand and closes his own window, leaving the teary brunette alone and shameful under the dark sky.

 

►§◄ 

It’s raining.

DongHae usually enjoys rain. He likes the tingling feeling of raindrops over his naturally sensitive skin, loves how the town’s overview softens into an idyllic postcard of browns and reds and grays and greens and for some reason he also adores watching people walk under it too, likes how the raindrops hit their umbrellas.

Yeah, he usually enjoys rain.

Today, however, he can’t.

His cell phone screen goes on and off every twenty minutes with a different message and he just can’t tuck it away because he knows every single one of them is from HyukJae. And he wants to read them of course, he wants to read them some much that as he teaches about plankton and fungi to his very uninterested students his fingers itch to grab his phone and reply.

It’s stupid, but it _wakes_ something inside him, something he thought he had put to sleep forever. He _needs_ to know what’s next, and it angers him because he _knows_ that HyukJae is well aware of this weak spot of his, that it’s all on purpose. He clenches his jaw and grunts, wanting to kick the motherfucker in the gut for doing this. After all he’s put him through lately it’d be more than well deserved.

The bell rings, startling him in the middle of his almost automatic rant. As expected, his students have all their stuff ready and run off as soon as they hear the characteristic chirping of freedom.

“Test is tomorrow, and remember this _will_ be in the exam” he reminds, just for the sake of the ‘ahhs’ he hears. He’s not usually one to pick on his students, but today it amuses him. It _distracts_ him.

He gathers his things, trying to forget all about the texts. He doesn’t think he’ll manage, especially because he is now very aware of them right there in his palm. It’s tempting, so very tempting. Most people wouldn’t get it. Most people aren’t Lee HyukJae.

His screen lights up one more time and he looks down to it, feeling like an addict falling inevitably into relapse.

_So after that, I went to the cinema. This town’s cinema is fucking small, you know? And there was this guy who was totally…_

He eyes the malicious device, narrowing his eyes accusingly, before he sighs and surrenders. He just _needs_ to know. Damn it.

_So after that, I went to the cinema. This town’s cinema is fucking small, you know? And there was this guy who was totally checking me out. He actually approached me, which is weird because who does that in small towns? Still, it was_

And that’s all there is, the message annoying and childish and, damn, _incomplete._

He doesn’t really think it through, he just types back.

_It was what?_

He holds his breath for what it feels like forever… but nothing happens.

DongHae stares at his cellphone like it’s going to reveal the secrets of the universe for him.

After twenty minutes, he finally sighs and gives up, leaving the classroom and trying to forget about the whole deal.

Fucking HyukJae pushing buttons.

 

It isn’t until hours later when he’s about to fall asleep with a book on his face, that he gets his answer.

_It was weird, ‘cause he was totally not my type. I like mine brunette, cute and a little psychotic. And curious, of course. Did you have a nice afternoon, Hae?_

DongHae grips the phone so tight he feels the outer metal buttons dig into his palm. He can fucking see HyukJae’s Cheshire’s-cat-like grin in his mind.

 

The next morning, when he wakes up from his drowsy alcohol-induced sleep and the first thing he does is check his phone to see if he’s got any texts from HyukJae, he realizes he’s already crossed a line. It it’s about the texts, it’s never been. The truth is since _that_ night, DongHae’s got this feeling inside his chest. An omen, you could call it. Something that tells him history is about to repeat itself—and damn if there have ever been people with more history than DongHae and HyukJae.

DongHae ignores the feeling.

Well, at least he tries to.

He can tell he’s not getting very far, though.

“Oh, hello DongHae” the brunette jumps as he hears behind him. He finishes locking the front door and turns around to find HyukJae smiling that half smirk that’s so breathtaking. “Always nicer to see you than read you, I must admit.”

DongHae clenches his jaw to refrain from snapping, but at the same time his eyes divert themselves with HyukJae’s lips and _the feeling_ stirs inside his chest at the thought of kissing that plump mouth.

“Stop it with the texts, HyukJae” he pleads, his voice charged with the despair he’s been carrying ever since he saw through HyukJae’s window right across the goddamn alley.

“That what you want, Hae? _Really?_ Because I recall that eight years ago all you wanted was for me to text you every freaking second. And what’s what they say? Old habits die hard?”

And even eight years later _that subject_ is like throwing salt to a very fresh wound.

DongHae clicks his tongue, eyeing HyukJae with disdain. “And I recall you telling me to fuck off. What’s what they say? Fucking whores don’t like to follow rules, right HyukJae? And now that I’m here—that I’m _good,_ you suddenly want to?”

His voice cracks and he looks away, hurt. Ever since he said goodbye to HyukJae he’s been aching, trying to forget, giving sanity a shot. What right does HyukJae have to come and take all his efforts away? The ash blonde feels his distress and takes a step forward invading the brunette’s personal space. The latter hates but amazes at how his body doesn’t flinch at all, how it shifts to fit HyukJae’s proximity.

“I’m right here, Hae. I’m texting you. And everything else I’ll do too. _Everything_ ” HyukJae whispers, just above his mouth, just barely grazing it with heat—yet not _really_ touching, not the way DongHae wants, not the way he _needs._ DongHae can’t help leaning in, even if it’s in the slightest, and his lips part automatically, already conditioned to that breath that washes over them when HyukJae sighs.

There’s a pause. A moment. They look at each other in the eye and then HyukJae pulls away, reluctantly.

“See you around, Hae.”

“No…” the word escapes DongHae before he can help it, but luckily it’s low and HyukJae is already walking to his car so he doesn’t hear it.

He doesn’t need to.

They both know what’s going on.

►§◄

 

As it’s become HyukJae’s pattern, after a _big deal_ there’s usually no deal at all. Now it’s like their routines have finally synchronized—in a natural, effortless way, and so they are flooded by the ordinary brief encounters that two neighbors of such a small town could have. Yet not a word’s been exchanged.

DongHae is too frightened to say anything, and gets discouraged every time he catches HyukJae eyeing him without saying anything. Their last encounter was too emotionally charged to try and take another step.

And that should be alright. It’s what he wants, right? Normalcy. Normal encounters with his normal neighbors that have no impact on his normal life. It should be great.

Except, he misses the texts.

It’s just—he _needs_ to know.

The questions bother him too much, it’s like an itch there’s no way to scratch.

 

_Where’s HyukJae?_

_What’s HyukJae doing now?_

_If he asked, HyukJae would reply, right?_

_Yeah, of course he would… or wouldn’t he?_

 

“Oppa! Oppa, are you paying attention to us?” SooYooung practically screeches into his ear, making DongHae almost hit his nose with the coffee machine. 

“Don’t be so harsh, Soo. He’s thinking of his new crush!” Jessica chirps in, winking at him in a secretive way and the brunette feels almost bad for how plain wrong it is to call HyukJae his ‘new crush’. “That hottie from the café, right? I thought I saw something between you too!”

Well… not that she ismistaken; DongHae _was_ indeed thinking about HyukJae.

No need to tell her that, however.

“Well? Oppa!”

“Yes, yes. Tonight at Margarita’s at nine. Gotcha. Can I go now? I have to… shower and stuff” he says, standing up from the stool and waving them goodbye. SooYoung frowns at him.

“AND BRING THE CAKE, YOU MORON!”

“Shit, right!”

Last things he hears are Jessica’s melodic laugh and SooYoung’s blabbering about her knowing keeping the cake in DongHae’s apartment was the worst idea in World History, and he can’t help but laugh as well.

 

DongHae analyzes his reflection on the full-body mirror on the back of his closet door and smirks.

It’s been a while since he’d dressed up so fancy to celebrate anything, and KyuHyunnie’s birthday seems like a perfect occasion. He’s got his short hair styled upwards and the first two buttons of his white shirt popped open. He tempers with the slight creases of his black dress pants that make quite justice to his toned legs and takes his black coat from the hanger, ready to leave.

He feels refreshed, like he’s finally getting a chance to escape the parallel dimension HyukJae’s submerged him into. It’ll be a fun dinner with friends: they’ll catch up, eat delicious food at the best restaurant in town and maybe have some drinks. All dandy and normal.

Even so…

Even so, before he turns off the lights, DongHae spares a glance in the direction of HyukJae’s bedroom window, only to confirm that he hasn’t come home, for whatever unknown reason.

DongHae hates the feeling of uneasiness that invades him.

 

“I’m impressed! You actually made it in time!” SeoHyun, the youngest of them all, observes, arching her eyebrows and smiling ever so slightly.

DongHae takes off his coat and sticks out his tongue at her.

“ChangMin will bring KyuHyun in twenty minutes. I bet the sly fox has already figured everything out, so let’s just prepare the stuff and forget the ‘surprise’ part” SooYoung suggests, taking the cake from his hands and walking to a table for eight they’d booked.

“Well, the idea of ChangMin treating to a meal is kind of unconceivable” SeoHyun agrees, nodding matter-of-factly. “Coming, oppa?”

“Ah, yes. Let me just check my coat alright?”

He turns to where he thinks he saw the coatroom when he entered—was it near the bar? He is about to ask the maître when something, or _someone,_ catches his eye.

Sharing a table for two with a really pretty brunette woman elegantly clad in a simple white dress, laughing and drinking expensive whine, is HyukJae, looking as if nothing in life could bother him. He’s dyed his hair deep red, just like when they’d met for the first time, and it kills DongHae to think that it might not have been for _him._

He knows he’s being idiotic; HyukJae _is_ gay, has always been in fact. But what if he really liked this woman and this woman only? Nah, they are probably just friends… And yet, yet DongHae can’t stop his blood from boiling scorching hot through his veins with jealousy.

He glances to the point where the girls are setting all up without noticing he’s taking long ‘checking his coat’ and gathers enough courage to stand up to the little green monster.

“Hey! Fancy meeting you here!” he chirps out, a bit more overly-cheerful than he’d liked, but hey, he’s no actor.

He puts a shaky hand on HyukJae’s shoulder, and the redhead turns around in a beat, almost choking on his whine at the sight of DongHae. For once, HyukJae seems surprised to see him—he could be just faking it out, but DongHae knows him well enough to sense this coincidence is genuine. There’s a faint trace of fear within his pupils, a trait that DongHae hasn’t seen in years and it astonishes him how powerful it makes him feel.

“D-D-DongHae” he takes a short breath, then seemingly gets it together for he smiles cordially again and stands up to greet him. “It _is_ weird meeting you here. Please, say hello to Im YoonA, she works at my building too. YoonA-sshi, he’s Lee DongHae, my _sweet_ neighbor.”

DongHae bows at the woman, who smiles back charmingly. “Another psychologist, are you?”

“Oh, no, I’m an orthodontist. So if you ever want braces you can call me—not that you need them, you have amazing teeth, Lee-sshi.”

There is an empty pause before HyukJae reacts and turns to DongHae.

“Hey, do you want to have dinner with us? I mean, if you’re not…”

“DongHae?”

The brunette turns at the mention of his name to find a confused-looking KyuHyun and ChangMin taking their coats off, staring at him as they would a stranger. Of course, they know practically everyone their age and all of DongHae’s acquaintances, so HyukJae may come off as a surprise.  DongHae quickly explains that it’s KyuHyun’s birthday today and he has to go, to which HyukJae just nods understandingly.

“Hey, YoonA” ChangMin greets suddenly, but the woman lifts her hand awkwardly, looking away from his direction.

“Give it up, man” KyuHyun hisses, grabbing both DongHae and ChangMin and taking them over to their section.

HyukJae resumes to his dinner, however it’s like a chain has extended between them because neither DongHae nor HyukJae can stop thinking about each other, persistently staring from the corner of their eyes, anxiously waiting to talk again.

It’s halfway through his dinner that DongHae gets a text from the ‘unknown number’ he’s already memorized but absolutely refuses to save into his phone memory.

It only says ‘ _I’m leaving now’,_ but DongHae knows exactly what it means.

He bites his lower lip, doubting for just the fraction of a second before making up some lame-ass excuse about remembering he has to grade papers and prepare his class because, silly him, mixed up on the subjects. Everyone asks him if he’s really okay, why he can’t do that tomorrow, but in the end they let him go since, well, wouldn’t it be weird if they didn’t. 

When he exits the restaurant, HyukJae is saying goodbye to YoonA while she gets in a cab. He watches with his arms crossed, absorbed in the way HyukJae’s coat embraces his silhouette so seductively and his now longer red hair is slightly messed by the wind.

Is it just his idea or it makes him seem younger? Maybe it’s just the fact that he automatically associates that image of HyukJae’s with youth, when they were getting out there in the world and grabbed so desperately at each other’s hearts to survive, when they honestly thought of love as a harmless near godly thing.

“Hey there” HyukJae says softly, touching DongHae’s arms gingerly and the latter just… _melts_ under his fingers. Little by little, he can’t help being completely entranced by this man. “Want to take a walk?”

DongHae knows this is dangerous, if the scene at the beginning of the evening was any indication of it, but he couldn’t care less. At that moment, walking with HyukJae was the most perfect idea ever conceived.

“Sure.”

Slowly they stroll through the dark streets, their lazy steps echoing against the grey pavement. DongHae feels unusually light, as if he is right where he needs to be and it’s a bewildering sensation. He feels slightly tempted to hold HyukJae’s hand like in the old days. He refuses, however, to give into such impulses and just sticks his hand deeper in his coat pocket instead.

They pass the closed supermarket and turn right, cutting way through the open-air parking lot.

“YoonA is really just a friend. I’m new in town and I don’t know anybody, so…” HyukJae begins, speaking in a low voice, his eyes never leaving the path they walk.

“I know” is DongHae’s earnest reply because he _honestly_ does, the fact that he refused to believe it is pure paranoia. “It’s just that… Um,” he hesitates, the knot on his throat rejecting the words that may sign his personal doom. “After all this time… I—I still—I just _hate_ seeing you with other people.”

HyukJae keeps silent for a full minute before he speaks again, his voice filled with some fluttery emotion that translates into his mouth as a smile. “I know.”

DongHae looks up at him, only to see he’s blushing madly, his fingers playing restlessly with the edge of his pockets.

“And it makes me so happy.”

The brunette presses his lips into a thin line to suppress a smile. The warmth that spreads across his chest is bittersweet as everything that’s ever involved HyukJae, yet at the same time is so soothing for a moment DongHae’s at a loss of what to do with himself, with all the love he’s got stored inside his heart and that’s always had only one owner.

In the end, he just takes HyukJae’s hand in his as they quietly wander their way home.

►§◄

Truth be told, DongHae can’t stop thinking about… _him_.

It has been a pretty mellow week since their run-in at the restaurant. They only see each other occasionally, casual neighbor-like run-ins where they don’t acknowledge the other, but it’s enough for DongHae to want more. 

Like any other addict that’s dangerously close to relapsing, he tries to deceive himself with ‘safe’ alternatives that are poor substitutes for the real thing.

So on Friday after his job he takes a detour to a storage room he shares with Jessica and SooYoung and digs out a huge cardboard box labeled ‘before’.

The last time he opened it was when he put all these stuff here. What he should have done, according to his ex-psychiatrist, was to get rid of all of them through some sort of meaningful ritual. The fact that he’s kept all these may be an indication of his set of mind back then, his unwillingness to change.  To be fair, he never thought he could _really_ recover, but last year was so good… he hadn’t even remembered all these things. Now he realizes they’re like a ghost that may not constantly haunt him, but as long as it’s there, there will always be the possibility.

He opens the box and takes the first contents out. They are yearbooks, from junior and senior years in High School. Yearbooks filled with hopes and encouraging signatures, people telling him to stick to his decision and how brave he was. Of course after his big come out at the end of his sophomore year the amount of signatures had considerably decreased, but being handsome, smart _and_ so badass that you actually could make a man twice your (small) size cry—all while having a deceivingly angelic face— had prevented the social damage from being too much.

Underneath that there are some college applications, a green hoodie HyukJae used to wear _every-fucking-were_ when he was seventeen, before giving it to DongHae for their two-month anniversary. There are also some scattered pictures around, but he doesn’t want to look at them. He doesn’t know what the sight of two teenage versions of them looking happy and in love may do to his already shattered psyche.

Still, he takes a moment to let nostalgia flood him. He could stay a whole week looking at all he’s got stored here, but he finds what he’s looking for in the first place a couple of minutes later and pulls it out carefully. He bites his lips, touching it with nearly reverent fingers, caressing the fine lines of black leather.

He smirks, an adrenaline pump he’s long forgotten rushing through his veins.

He shouldn’t, he _really_ shouldn’t. Why would he want to keep this anyway?

But if there’s anything certain to DongHae among the internal chaos that has become his life, it’s that he’s got zero self-control. So he takes the damn thing back home.

 

If DongHae wasn’t convinced of his lack of control before, then now he’s knocking on HyukJae’s door he is damn sure of it. Bringing a stupid corny basket with breakfast and wearing a sky blue Lacoste sweater that used to be HyukJae’s too, he feels defeated as much as he feels relieved, like he’s finally going to get what his body and mind have been aching for all this time.

“DongHae” HyukJae says ineloquently, looking stunned but genuinely pleased. He’s still in his PJs, green cotton ones with a monkeys-and-bananas print; he seems well-rested, relaxed, his hair is messy and his cheeks are rosy. He’s just woken up. And to DongHae, he’s the most perfect being ever conceived. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

DongHae bites his lower lip, looking down to his sneakers. What’s he going to say? ‘ _Yeah, I came here because I can’t stop thinking about you and in case you haven’t noticed… I’m kind of addicted to you’_. Yeah, well, HyukJae probably already knows that.

“I’m just… Feeling lonely. Is it okay if—?”

“Yes,” the answer is immediate, earnest in the purest way.

They stare at each other for a second before DongHae lifts the basket. “I brought breakfast.”

HyukJae’s eyes light up with an almost-forgotten glint. “Flakes and strawberry milk?”

“A freshman’s feast!” DongHae completes, smiling brightly.

HyukJae makes room for him to enter, and DongHae hesitates for a moment. It’s HyukJae’s _apartment_ , after all. It’s his territory, a space where DongHae isn’t normal Lee DongHae the biology teacher anymore but just DongHae, that popular high school kid whose universe only revolves around his classmate HyukJae. A couple of months this was what he feared the most. Right now it seems like the most natural and inevitable thing in the world.

“Leave the basket on the counter and sit, I’ll set up” HyukJae offers, closing the door behind them.

The brunette nods and obliges, sitting on the light green couch against a light brown wall. The soft velvet of its cushions against his fingertips reminds him of an old sensation he discovered long time ago in a second-hand store back in Seoul. He turns slightly to look at the offending piece of furniture for a second before something clicks inside his head.

“Is… is this _the_ couch?”

HyukJae coughs a little from the kitchen. DongHae can picture HyukJae’s cheeks blushing and can’t help smiling fondly. He wants to go and help him when a tall narrow cabinet catches his eye. He recognizes that as well, except this time is from a foreign magazine he remembers stealing from his mom.

DongHae looks around again and it’s like his memory receives a shock of warmth. All those years spent planning this, their life, together. _This—_ this _apartment_ is a complete creation of them both, of afternoons spent looking at décor magazines and window shopping for antiques—which was totally not as gay as it sounds. Sure, their dreamed one was in Italy, but HyukJae has sure done a swell job recreating it here, in this small forgotten town.

“You… you bought it all” he whispers, surprised, but HyukJae hears him while he leaves a tray on the coffee table. The square retro Brass & Grass coffee table that DongHae had practically ogled all his freshman year (hey, the store was on his way to college!).

“Yep. Some of them are vintage because, you know, a lot of those magazines were so old I…”

“I love it”, DongHae spits without even thinking.

He does. He honestly _does._

And it’s weird too, because he never felt _adored_ as he feels now, he’s never been the center of attention, the vulnerable one. That used to be HyukJae, the lenient and fluffy marshmallow DongHae used to chew on. Now it all seems reversed.

Except HyukJae is not being the son of a bitch DongHae was. HyukJae is being nice, and tender, and _charming._ And DongHae fucking despises it. Despises the way it makes his chest flicker.

He’s snapped out of his thoughts when he feels HyukJae kneel before him, his hands on DongHae’s knees. HyukJae leans into his personal space slightly, not enough to be threating. It’s his strategy, DongHae knows; he doesn’t want to scare him off like a deer in front of headlights.

It had been DongHae’s technique so many years ago, when he’d cornered a dumbstruck sixteen-year-old HyukJae against the wall of the boy’s bathroom. He’d slid his hands under HyukJae’s school uniform shirt and had stroked his sides slowly, all fingertips and warmth, until HyukJae had been the one to pull him in for a hungry kiss. Not their first kiss, not really, but it _had_ been the one that had started everything.

So yeah, DongHae knows the script. Fuck, he _wrote_ the damn thing _._

But… but their breaths mingle hotly, both their cheeks are flushed, HyukJae’s eyes caress every feature of his face, lingering on the lips and it’s just—what he _wants,_ damn it.

“Hum… I thought… Food” he tries to say, rather ineloquently. He hears his words and chuckles. What is happening to him? Can’t he get a grip? The whole situation is so pathetic and still so freaking compelling it throws him off like that.

HyukJae looks at him fondly and cups his face, stroking his cheeks with his thumbs. DongHae could’ve flinched—he doesn’t. “I’ve always loved your smile, you know? Back in school, I thought… ‘ _That smile over there, that’s what brings the day after every rainy night’._ ”

DongHae rolls his eyes. HyukJae playing prince makes his butterflies flutter and his blood boil in anger at the same time.

 

This isn’t them.

This was never them.

 

His hands lift instinctively to curl around the base of HyukJae’s neck and pull him close, his eyelids heavy with want and intimacy. Their mouths are _so_ close yet they aren’t touching, just itching to meet and that drumroll makes everything more delicious. DongHae can feel HyukJae swallowing under his thumbs, the slight heave of his body as he breathes in and out shakily. 

First, he presses lightly, tentatively. HyukJae’s skin burns under DongHae’s hands, the touch is familiar yet hesitant. It’s been a long time since he’s felt this powerful, since he’s had HyukJae _literally_ at his feet like this. Back then, DongHae called all the shots. HyukJae’s resistance was a way to reaffirm his superiority. Now that HyukJae is offering himself in a silver platter… well, DongHae doesn’t know how far he can go. He doesn’t know if he’d recognize _Too Much_ if he saw it right in front of his nose.

 _HyukJae_ , though, looks absolutely sure. He doesn’t tremble, he doesn’t flinch. He stays and offers; he sinks into it, moves along with DongHae’s breath as if he was living off it.

DongHae leans in, closing his eyes and parting his lips, only when he does so, he realizes they’re trembling. He exhales shakily and blinks, and only then he grasps that he’s _crying._

The other pulls away immediately. He stares at DongHae, this DongHae that isn’t the DongHae he once abandoned, this is the broken shell of that one, the precariously glued-together version. It doesn’t matter to HyukJae, though, and DongHae knows it. It’s still _him, them,_ and they go together so much that even when DongHae is this weak, HyukJae thinks he can be strong for the both of them. “Shh… Shhh… Don’t cry…” he sits on the couch next to the brunette and hugs him close, wrapping him in his arms possessively. “What’s been going on with you, baby? Have you suffered too much?”

DongHae breaks.

“You’ve got no idea” he sobs into HyukJae’s shoulder, holding back a childish hiccup. So many years, so many feelings, it’s all come rushing down since the first day he saw HyukJae from across his window, and it’s finally boiled up to explode all over his soul, the borrowed one he’d had to build for the sole purpose of surviving. 

DongHae shatters as he clings to HyukJae for dear life. He’d fooled himself into thinking he was surviving, that he was doing good, when the truth is that the minute HyukJae reappeared into his life he’d felt the void of his existence tear open in full force.

“Shh, baby, I know” he mumbles into his hair, kissing the top of his head lovingly. His voice drips of pain and compassion and… All that clicks in DongHae.

He doesn’t know what. It just… clicks.

He shoves HyukJae away from his body.

It’s clicked, and now he’s not _sad_ , he’s angry, he’s _furious._

“No! STOP! Don’t say that, don’t you _dare_ to even pretend you understand! Do you even _know_ what it feels like to be locked up for two fucking years, with someone telling you every single fucking day how sick and depraved you are?” he screams violently, not an inch of control in his tone. His eyes are bloodshot and murderous, and he sees HyukJae shrink under his gaze but he doesn’t actually _register_ it he’s that far gone. “No. You don’t! Because Lee HyukJae is just a little fucking victim of horrible DongHae! Do you know what it is like to hear all those comments of ‘Oh, he looked like _such_ a good kid, who could’ve thought he’d be this deranged’ over, and over and _over again?_ Until you believe it? Until you start _despising_ yourself every time you look into a mirror?”

“Baby, I…” HyukJae stands up and walks up to DongHae, concern shadowing his features, but the brunette rejects him by taking a few steps back.

“NO! Shut the fuck up! Or I’ll make you shut your mouth the way I used to, remember that?”

HyukJae’s gaze widens for a moment, fear crossing his eyes for just a moment before he chances touching DongHae again. Only this time DongHae doesn’t step back. Instead, he pushes HyukJae so forcefully he lands into the couch, his body slamming against it painfully.

“Get away from me! You’re a selfish bitch, HyukJae, because just when I was… I was _trying… I was getting normal…_ You just come and… You’re… You’re so…” he chokes on his own words, tears falling again, rage and pain intermixed in his waterfall of feelings. He’s just so _confused,_ so lost _._ He feels his head spinning and swimming back and forth from reality to memory, memory to reality, over and over again until he’s not sure which is which.

He walks to the kitchen; he needs water. For his face, for his throat, for his head, for whatever, he just needs the freaking water.

HyukJae follows him quietly, biting on his lower lip nervously.

“I’m…”

DongHae lifts a finger at him and hisses, “Don’t you dare apologize. I’ll beat the shit out of you if you do.”

HyukJae flinches, because of all the things the other had done to him, hitting had never been one of them. Most people thought so, when they found out about their relationship (and saw all the marks in HyukJae’s body from… _other_ activities), but it was a lie. DongHae wasn’t violent, just possessive, not selfish, but HyukJae-oriented. People just didn’t get him. To be completely honest, HyukJae hadn’t at first either. Eight years and lots of rivers under a very bumpy bridge, he not only comprehends DongHae’s mind to its full extent but is actually able to love it fully, at a whole new and wonderful level.

If only he could get that point across to DongHae, who’s, as expected, beings stubborn as hell.

He and raises his hands in sign of surrender. “Okay. How about I tell you about what I’ve been doing?”

“Don’t wanna know.” DongHae rasps out, closing the cold water tap of the sink.

The redhead goes back to tugging at his lower lip, thinking. He needs DongHae to open up to him again as he’d done before his little anger fit. Then a baby blue glint catches his eyes and he smiles internally, reaching over to take the heavy ceramic. He shows it to DongHae.

“I rescued your plates, when they registered our apartment” HyukJae mumbles, staring at the plate adoringly. “I thought that… When we got back together, we could go to that picnic we always wanted…”

DongHae scrunches up his nose as HyukJae rambles on.

“What is _the matter with you,_ HyukJae?” he asks, and he’s immediately taken back to when HyukJae had asked DongHae the exact same sentence but backwards. DongHae had mentioned he wanted HyukJae to respect an 11 o’clock curfew, and a nineteen-year-old Lee HyukJae had spat that question to him as he laughed it off.

An hour later DongHae had showed him how serious he was, and then HyukJae wasn’t laughing anymore but actually moaning rather appreciatively, when... Well.

Apparently, HyukJae is remembering the same thing because his features have suddenly hardened, his eyes glazing over dusty memories stored in the back of his brain.

“You…” DongHae mumbles. “This is not right. _They_ were. Every single one of them. We’re not… for each other.” It’s a lie, that’s what it is. If there’s ever been two people more destined to be together like jigsaw puzzles, it had to be them. But hell… too many voices telling him otherwise had engraved the filthy words into his brain.

HyukJae ran away. He had the chance to reflect about his needs and wants and reaffirm his love for DongHae. DongHae was locked and made to listen once and again why his love for HyukJae was wrong.  It’s too late to push the reverse button now.

The brunette shakes his head. He makes a move to go for the door, but he finds himself blocked by HyukJae. Somehow, he looks taller, more imposing than he remembered. Teen DongHae wouldn’t have had it… Current DongHae finds it _hot._ But it doesn’t matter now; DongHae’s made his mind already.

“You can’t leave me” HyukJae mumbles darkly, unyielding. “You said I’d always be yours. I am. What am I supposed to do?”

“See if I care.”

HyukJae raises his eyebrow at his tone, slick and scorching like metal under the sun. He’s seeing a glimpse, ever brief and far, of old DongHae—enough of him to know that he’s still… well, himself. He wants to test it, he wants to make DongHae stay, so he raises the plate and then smashes it against the floor. The sound of it sharp, deafening; it startles DongHae and it makes something inside him burn.

DongHae snarls a warning; he should go and make HyukJae kneel, pulling on his pretty hair (which he should totally grow a little bit so DongHae would have more to grab onto) until tears prickle his eyes and he apologizes for making a mess, because apparently HyukJae has forgotten how he should behave in front of DongHae.

HyukJae looks defiant, ready to smash another of DongHae’s plates and the brunette takes a step forward. The redhead is breathing heavily, nearly panting under the intensity of DongHae’s commanding stare and it feels so _familiar,_ so _normal—their_ kind of normal, as if the misbalanced equilibrium of their broken universe was about to be restored.

Then, DongHae hesitates. 

No. This is not him. Not anymore.

Hasn’t he learned from his mistakes?

Hasn’t he been through enough?

HyukJae will never understand how much DongHae has suffered. He can’t take back all the pain he’s caused. That _they’ve_ caused. He wasn’t in DongHae’s skin along these eight years, he wasn’t even _close_ to him, and he can’t pretend to come back into his life like this.

No. He won’t go down that lane again.

He walks to the door and opens it, ready to leave when suddenly the irony of the situation gets to him.

“This… It’s kind of a reversed déjà vu, isn’t it?” DongHae said, smirking without turning around to look at HyukJae. “You know, eight years ago I watched you turn your back on me and hated you. Hated you so much I wanted to kill you, fucking cut you and eat your heart” he chuckles darkly at HyukJae’s hopeful face. Poor kitten. “But now I get that I should thank you. You gave me the chance of normalcy. And I took it. So don’t come crying back to me now only because back then you were a little bitch who didn’t know what he wanted. Have a good life, Lee HyukJae.”

He closes the door behind him, but stays to listen through it how HyukJae cries and wails and throws stuff against the wall, some of them breaking loudly.

 _Well, he’ll have a lot to clean later._ DongHae thinks coldly, then freezes.

It’s like a piece of his old-self has been kicked back into action. It’s not the dominant aspect yet, but it might get there if he continues indulging in… whatever this is, with HyukJae. 

It scares the hell out of him.

►§◄

 

DongHae is scared, there’s no way he can lie that much to convince himself he’s not.

He’s not as scared of HyukJae as much he is of himself, though.

Why would DongHae actually  _fear_ HyukJae, when he’s had the redhead caught among the strong grip of his fingers, and the fact that he’s come to search for him after three years only reassures that fact?

No, the brunette’s fear comes from within him.

He’s terrified of the way his skin reacts to HyukJae’s simplest touches, of how his heart can’t decide between pumping faster or slower when the redhead calls his name,  or how everything in his mind and body races when HyukJae so much as looks at him. He’s afraid, because the sense of possession and absolute adoration that overcomes him when he thinks about HyukJae is so hard to handle, has  _proven_ too hard to handle.

Nobody has time for that.

 

After that not-little-at-all incident things, quite expectedly, change.

HyukJae’s lost his confidence after DongHae’s rejection, DongHae can tell, because HyukJae has stopped wearing expensive clothing and lining his eyes and fixing his hair. Nowadays he wears comfortable jeans and shirts for work, and hoodies when he’s in his room.

Of course the brunette  _shouldn’t_ know that, because if he goes back a few weeks, he’ll remember he was trying to avoid HyukJae with all his might and now suddenly he’s watching HyukJae’s every move, but that doesn’t seem relevant now when DongHae just wants to jump to the window in front of his own and hug the pain out of his ex.

Because DongHae gets it, he really does. When he met HyukJae, he was a regular kid. Acceptable grades, good friends, talented dancer, funny and friendly guy. Not excessively self-assured, but assertive enough. However, when DongHae came into his life he put a whole new perspective to HyukJae’s young existence. DongHae made HyukJae fall in love with him, but not  _just_ that, he’d made HyukJae feel the  _need_ to be liked and loved by DongHae.

So, long time after everything went down, HyukJae strides back in, totally confident in his skills to make DongHae fall for him all over again, or maybe expecting to bring the still-existing feelings back in full force, whatever. But plot twist, DongHae rejects him. Over and over. Even when he seems like he might be giving in.

All he’s worked for, all he’s believed about himself and his former lover, his only beloved, isn’t what he remembers, doesn’t feel as HyukJae remembers. It’s ground-shaking. It’s an earthquake to the heart.

So yeah, the brunette understands; how could he not? HyukJae’s operating in a mechanism that DongHae himself had designed.

Even so, he’s trying not to be sympathetic. He needs to be cold and practical.

HyukJae’s poison.

If he wants to remain healthy, he needs to stay away.

Easy, simple, _logical._

Then again… _way_ simpler said than done.

Funny how DongHae keeps going back to that, huh?

►§◄ 

Two week pass.

Then another one does.

Now DongHae is sure, HyukJae’s avoiding him.

It feels weird, after being practically stalked to insanity by HyukJae, missing seeing his face and hearing about his day, encountering him on their ways home and making awkward small talk—yes, when you’ve got nothing, even the non-so-good moments seem like the best. Of course if you consider the big picture it’s not _that_ odd. After all, there _had_ been a time where DongHae found out everything that happened to HyukJae 24/7.

DongHae knows that feeling was kicked back into action when they started that cellphone texting game (harmless at the time, but is anything ever with HyukJae?). And he followed the path by showing up in HyukJae’s doorstep. Nonetheless, after so much self-beating and guilt-tripping, now he’s sort of… accepted it.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say.

And what better proof of that than the both of them?

Three days after he figures that out, DongHae can’t take it any longer.

He _needs_ to know. How is HyukJae doing? How’s he feeling right now? Is he thinking about me, about us? Has he cried? Has he eaten? Is he sleeping alright?

All these questions always made DongHae overly anxious—which might have been the root of his possessiveness in the first place—, and now that he knows he shouldn’t be getting answers, the oppressive feeling only grows stronger.

So that day after school he crosses the main street which separates DongHae’s school from HyukJae’s office convinced of knocking on HyukJae’s door to get some answers. Those _much_ needed answers.

Although, even if he hasn’t stopped thinking about it all day, DongHae hasn’t _actually_ _thought_ it through, so his plan consists of just going and checking HyukJae out, awkwardness be damned, and then run back to his apartment as a shivering mass of shame and guilt.

Yep, that sounds like a plan.

He’s about to enter the building and act as one of HyukJae’s patients (he _has_ experience as a mentally ill person, after all) when he catches sight of HyukJae waiting by the bus stop. He’s sitting on the bench, knees together, head down in a way where his reddish bangs somber his features. From each of his ears a slim cable dangles up to the same pocket, so it’s clear he’s listening to music, although no part of his body seems to feel the music like it usually would. He’s immobile, completely still, like the saddest photograph in the world, and he looks… He looks terribly _miserable,_ and it makes DongHae’s heat ache. It’s like he’s watching a washed-out version of gangly doe-eyed teenage HyukJae whose heart he had worked his hardest to conquer. If this had been the version he had met… well, probably he wouldn’t have checked twice.

As he is, it’s just a vague reflection of the HyukJae he adores so much. And DongHae just can’t bear it.

“Hey” he says plainly, sitting next to HyukJae on the bench.

The redhead doesn’t move in the longest seconds that might as well have been years, and for a moment DongHae wonders whether the older heard him or not.

“I thought you didn’t want to see me again” HyukJae mumbles, pulling on the earphone cable so the earpieces fall out of his ears. His voice is hoarse and dry, just as lifeless as he himself seems and it’s heartbreaking. 

The wind blowing is cold, but not unbearable. There’s traffic noise but apart from that (which honestly just blends into the background) everything is quiet and they both get the impression of being able to hear the other’s breath.

“You were the one who got sick of me” DongHae accuses, although his voice sounds more factual than anything else. Perhaps that’s even worse, who knows.

“It was a long time ago.”

“Clearly not enough or we wouldn’t be here right now, together. So sad and affected…” the brunette reflects, looking down to his shoes in seek of distraction. HyukJae bites his lower lip but says nothing, so DongHae continues. “I went to the storage room.”

The redhead barely lifts an inquiring eyebrow.

“I found this” he takes out the thin and stylish leather band that he retracted from his memory box some time ago. It’s perfectly kept, has this sort of filigree pattern and it still feels heavy in DongHae’s hands. He feels the little freckle on the tip of his right eyebrow scorch as if it’s still the scar it once was and swallows, trying to push down the memory of HyukJae throwing it at him and screaming _I hate you, you fucked up son of a bitch—_ yeah, _those_ are the kinds of things you never forget. Carrying it inside his pocket for weeks is pathetic, even by their standards, but DongHae can’t regret it because it’s the perfect moment to bring it up.

“Memories much?” HyukJae says, and finally there’s a hint of a smile on his lips.

“Suppose so. I don’t need it anymore, though. It’s yours. If…” he hesitates, but forces to utter the words. “If you want it, of course.”

HyukJae looks down at his left wrist, so pristine it’s hard to believe that it was once raw and covered in bruises. He feels so many different emotions at the time they end up swirling inside his chest and he ends up feeling nothing at all, just DongHae’s

He extends his arm and exposes his wrist, pulling his sleeve up just enough to fit the bracelet. “Okay, put it on.”

DongHae blinks almost sure he’s having a stroke. He stares at HyukJae wide eyed and gaping, but there’s nothing close to doubt in the other’s eyes. He looks beat, surrendered to whatever may happen between the two of them.

“Sure?”

HyukJae nods, a tender smile plastered on his face. He looks like an idiot. An idiot in love. “It’s mine, isn’t it? I’m supposed to be wearing it.”

DongHae nods silently and grabs HyukJae’s hand between his, pulling it to his personal space. His fingers are shaking, and he wonders for a second how they’ve gotten to this. From clumsy teenagers to shattered attempt of adults to strangers to hunter and pray to slowly rebuilding whatever they had before, relationship or whatever you want to call it. It’s like they are about to jump over a breach and try a do-over, a better opportunity to take each other in.

He carefully slips the leather over HyukJae’s wrist, feeling it heat up under his fingers. HyukJae’s pulse is wild under the fragile skin, but he allows the brunette to adjust it to his contour.

Somewhere on the back of DongHae’s mind it occurs to him that this is not the best way to restart a relationship. This is walking the same dark paths they’d walked so many years ago, as if they haven’t learnt, they haven’t grown at all.

Maybe it’s not a do-over.

Maybe it’s an “ _unpausing”._

Once it’s strapped on, HyukJae shakes his hand away. It’s not a violent jerk but a tentative attempt to get used to the extra weight, to the thing that was once second skin.

“It feels lighter” he observes.

“Oh, I guess the battery’s out.”

“It _was_ my job to charge it, sorry I forgot.”

It’s a joke, and although they both want to chuckle they find they simply can’t.

There’s too much that has been said, too much that DongHae’s avoided to remember, and the air is so charged. A bus stops in front of them and a lady gets off, spares them a glance and walks away. None of them move. The bus leaves, they stay behind. It’s always been like that for them—the world moves forward and they are left behind, trapped within their very own crystal box.

“Why did you come looking for me?” DongHae suddenly asks in a tiny contemplative voice. “I mean… After all that happened… All this time, all these years—what has changed?”

HyukJae doesn’t answer for what seems the longest time ever. He stares off into the asphalt, his upper teeth worrying into his lower lip.

“I want you now. I want all of you. No conditions. No restrictions. Just… you. All of it—I’m not gonna run. I’m ready now.” 

DongHae lifts his eyebrows, pondering. Is he really willing to do this all over again? Expose his heart and his self and take over their lives like it used to be?

Maybe it can be the same, but the tiniest bit better.

Maybe they _have_ grown.

Maybe this consent is as much growing as they can do.

“Okay” DongHae says. He grabs HyukJae’s chin and tilts it up, looking at him straight in the eyes.

The redhead blushes and his eyes widen. And once again he’s _that_ HyukJae, DongHae’s HyukJae. Like he’s never stopped. And the brunette can’t do anything but pull him into a kiss, abruptly and wonderfully and it’s like everything they remembered and _more_ because it’s _real._ And even with their crazy-ass expectations real still beats fantasy.

It’s not a sweet kiss, not by regular standards, but for them is strawberry caramel; sharp and intense and dripping sugar. It’s theirs, signature flavors and touches and presences. There’s nothing better than _their own,_ nothing other people can have that it’d made them jealous.

“You’re mine now, okay?” DongHae says, tugging on HyukJae’s lower lip and smirking as he releases it, licking his lips as he feels that familiar flavor hit his taste buds, impregnate his mouth.

DongHae has finally given up.

Thus, HyukJae wins.


	2. Chapter 2

**E P I L O G U E**

 

**# YoonA**

Guys are like piranhas. It’s like they can’t hang out with a woman without thinking of getting her off her clothes. But they have good qualities too! As, for example, they are almost always light-hearted and hot-headed. They don’t _overthink_ things like us girls usually do.

I mean, I love my girlfriends, but there’s a limit to how much womanly drama I can take.

That’s why when I met HyukJae I immediately took a liking to him. He’s a sensitive guy but still relaxed and easy to hang out with. So that’s what we did.

Later I would discover that was due to the fact HyukJae is gay, but when he ‘came out’ I was already fond of him—and I don’t know, I just don’t seem to mind it the way other people do. Certainly not everyone had the guts to be out in a mostly-homophobic Korea. I even found it interesting. Never having met a gay person before, HyukJae’s love life was a mystery to me, a fascinating one even. I just wanted to know and I never wasted a chance to ask—still do, actually.

“That guy the other night. Are you and him…?” I asked the day after HyukJae ran into his friend (what was his name, Dong… It was Dong something, I’m sure) at the restaurant, a glint of slyness in my tone.

“Dating? Nah” he said casually, but there was something in his eyes, maybe also the hint of a smirk, which made it seem as if he was enjoying an inner joke. “It’s… No.”

I cocked my head to the side and narrowed my eyes at him. _That_ hesitance I recognized. It was the doubt of the one with pending business.

“Let me guess, a thing with an ex?"

“Yeah… sort of” he answered dryly, making clear that was all he had to say about it.

The chick side of me was desperate to ask, but I decided against it. When HyukJae is ready, he’ll tell me, I thought.

So, even if HyukJae has this somewhat secretive side to him, I like him. He’s nice. He understands. He’s a good pal.

We used to go to dinner at nice restaurants, all very distant and proper, but as we got closer we decided to ditch that. So now we try different bars and knock off some beers and it feels _so damn good_ to take off the ‘proper lady’ label as well, even if it’s for just a few hours—I don’t think I would like not having it at all, but a brief rest is always welcomed, right?

“He was a greedy guy” he finally says one day, over a couple of beers in a pretty high-end bar I know on the nicest part of this beautiful small town I grew in. “My ex, I mean.”

I don’t know what motivated him, why he decided that now is a good moment as any, or why was he even thinking about that at all, but I decide to just shut up and listen, which is what good friends need to do from time to time.

“He didn’t just want me to love him, he wanted to own me. Completely. He started messing with what I wore, what I ate, who I saw and what I did. It got to the point where he made me wear this leather bracelet with a GPS” he chuckles darkly. “I guess I just wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment” he shrugged.

I frown, clearly because there is this _thing_ in the way that HyukJae oppa says it as if he’s remembering something funny from a warm past. He seems so… _fond_ of the memory _?_ I think I’d heard all wrong. He had a fucking _stalker!_ How can he talk about it as if he was reminiscing about his high school prom?

“So you broke up with him?” I ask, and I realize my voice is a tad shaky. It’s the alcohol, I figure. The alcohol and the tiredness. It must be.

He stares at the bottle of bear in his hands and shakes his head, sighing heavily.

“I guess you could call it that. One day I decided to change the lock. I got a restraining order. I said… I said he was sick and he should die. He insisted and I… I… I couldn’t… I didn’t handle it-like… at all. Everything… It was so awful. I got him committed. It was—sorry; I just don’t want to talk about that anymore” he pauses and swallows, looking as if a big weight was being pushed upon him as he talked.

“Oh my God, I’m sorry” I said, putting a hand on his should and trying to fix the most sympathetic look I can, although it’s kind of hard when you’ve just heard something as shocking.

“Yeah, me too” he admits, sighing deeply. “If things had been different… so much more could’ve been avoided. Because he was… Special. Timing was off, I guess.”

There is something in his words, though, something that lingers in my brain as I try to figure it out through the rest of our conversation (which, thankfully, moves into lighter territories from then on).

It’s still bothering me when I am driving home, pleasantly buzzed but not out of my mind. His last words keep repeating themselves in my head as I go up my apartment and only when I’m brushing my teeth is that I catch it.

It’s adoration.

HyukJae speaks with adoration and, God help me, _love_ about his abuser. That’s why it’s so weird hearing him talk about it. It’s so _wrong._

He hasn’t rehabilitated yet.

And probably, he never will.

The feeling will give me chills every time I think about it, of that I’m so sure it hurts.

I can only hope that they shall never meet again, for HyukJae’s wellbeing’s sake.

 

**# SeoHyun**

“Oh, someone’s happy!” I comment as DongHae enters the teacher’s lounge.

Lately he’s been so happy, jumpy and excited and smiley and it just makes my heart swell to see him like that… Except he’s also been ditching us constantly to hang out with his new boyfriend, HyukJae—of whom we’ve only _heard_ about, by the way.

I know it’s not HyukJae’s fault—or maybe it is, maybe he’s a demanding little twinkie who asks for DongHae’s attention 24/7. I try not to be judgmental, I really do, but it bothers you when one of your best friends gets a new piece of ass and just forgets all about his previous friendships.  Or perhaps it’s not HyukJae’s fault but DongHae’s. He may be the one attaching himself to this new relationship, consciously or not, and HyukJae just goes along with it.

It occurs to me that I don’t really know any of these things. I’ve never seen DongHae date, or talk about dating or even eye someone with interest.

Whichever one it is, we’ll never find out unless DongHae chooses to dignify us with his presence, now will we?

But however it is, I expected more than this from my friend.

And when we _are_ together–or in the same room, to be fully accurate— like now, DongHae is barely more than a robot who’s constantly connected to his cellphone, typing and smirking and looking completely creepy.

“Are you even listening?!” I shout, not caring if I sound hysteric.

It gets on my fucking nerves.

“Could you cut it with the cellphone already, oppa?” I plead, trying another strategy that was deemed to fail since the beginning.

“No.”

He doesn’t even look up to answer, his voice all serious and no-nonsense like I’ve never heard from him before.

I roll my eyes.

Love really turns guys into dicks.

 

**# KyuHyun**

“Curiosity killed the cat.”

It’s a popular saying, isn’t it?

Well, I think it's bullshit.

Curiosity is what drives the world forward. We wouldn’t have electricity, wheels, windows or the full fucking cars if guys all along world history hadn’t been curious at one point or another.

Okay yes, I may be over-excusing my curiosity, but it doesn’t matter. Bottom line, I’m a curious guy.

So when our dear friend DongHae starts disappearing more and more until I realize it’s been three weeks since I last saw him, I start to get _real_ worried—and, okay, (more than) a little curious.

I mean, DongHae’s always been a bit of a question mark for us. It goes a little bit unnoticed because he seems so innocent and charming, always cheerful and optimistic, but the fact is that DongHae is the oldest of our group, and as he never really discusses his life in Seoul (whereas he _does_ share quite a lot about Mokpo) the only plausible assumption is that he has a _past._

I could say I’m just worried… But that’s not the _whole_ truth. It’s the most important part of it, of course, but there’s also that bit of pounding nosiness that makes me ask that day—I have to take advantage of the reducing company hours DongHae now gives me, and the whole group for that matter.

“So, what’s the deal with this HyukJae guy? Jessica saw you two making out on the park the other day” I say with a playful wiggle of eyebrows, trying to make it casual and light-hearted.

“Oh, we’re… sort of dating” he says calmly. He acts like it’s no big deal, but oh Lee DongHae I know better. Do you think I’m stupid?

“Good. When are you going to bring him along? We want to officially meet the jewel that monopolizes our little DongHae’s attention” I insist, grabbing his left cheek and pulling it shamelessly. I know it bothers him because of the whole reversed hyung-dongsaeng dynamic, but come on! Mentally I’m like eight years DongHae’s senior. “Come on, why can’t we meet him?”

His eyes harden for a minute, his jaw tightens. It’s a weird expression for DongHae’s face, like a mask that you’d never though he’d wear but that somehow fits perfectly. He looks cold and dominant, and I know the word _never_ is at the tip of his tongue.

Instead he coughs and looks away.

“Uhm… I don’t know. HyukJae’s not much of a people person.”

There’s a way in which he says it, though, something in his tone that makes me translate the sentence as _‘I don’t want HyukJae to be a people person’_.

And I get curious. More and more curious. Every time I think about it, it sparks the flame of interest inside of me.

I have to call ChangMin and see what he thinks. If anybody knows something that I don’t, that guy’s the guy to call.

 

**# ChangMin**

It’s the only thing I’ve been thinking about the whole week.

DongHae has a psychiatric record. Scratch that. He got sent to an actual psychiatric facility due to _court order._ That isn’t light shit—nor is anything I had to do to get to DongHae’s life records, but hey, an informatics engineer has to do what an informatics engineer has to do.

…

Okay, so I _had_ to pull some threads and cash out some favors in order to get my hands on it, but I finally got it. I read it that same night; at first I thought I’d only browse through it but I ended up memorizing the thing from cover to cover.

It’s shocking, DongHae’s story. Basically because for thirteen years he was the most normal kid from the most normal family in the world: average grades, same school as his slightly older brother, loving mother and father, very middle class… Then they moved to Seoul and DongHae’s history still seemed to be going on a normal path—up to college. _There_ everything froze up, he was detained by the police with charges of domestic violence and abusive behavior and the only reason he wasn’t incarcerated was because his lawyer made a pledge for disturbed psychological conditions. Which, as guessed, was accepted and so DongHae was interned in May that year, and wouldn’t come out for two _complete_ years. Twenty-four freaking months in full confinement… I just… I had to stop reading to let that sink in. Sure, it wasn’t prison _per_ se but… Being locked up for two whole years, you being freedom-deprived?

_Fuck._

Of course this story isn’t documented like that on his files. I pieced it all together from hospital records, school records, and then, of course, medical and police ones as well. There were even a few paper interviews about DongHae’s achievements in Mokpo (he was the captain of his soccer team, and apparently a very successful one), and one report from his junior year in High School when he and four classmates won a regional dance battle championship—one of them was Lee HyukJae, the same guy that years later would turn him into authorities for abuse.

After all that chaos, he finished school and moved to our nice beautiful town. Where he got to know us and befriend us—and betrayed us.

Did he? Betray us, I mean.

It's—It’s not like he lied. In fact, the more I thought about it the more I realized he never has. He just… Omitted, disguised, so that the DongHae we know it’s but a tip of the iceberg. A very dark, heavy and even dangerous iceberg.

Still… It’s not the same as lying, right?

Anyways, I shared the whole thing with KyuHyun, just him, because I knew that he wouldn’t freak out (or at least, wouldn’t act upon it) and also because I kind of _needed_ to get it out of my chest. It’s hard to admit that the shock could later equivalent to fear. Perhaps it’s irrational. Perhaps DongHae isn’t dangerous at all. Perhaps he’s cured. That didn’t and doesn’t help the bad feeling sinking in my gut, nothing can.

 _“Do you think this is the same HyukJae he’s dating right now? The one that we met at the restaurant that one time…”_ KyuHyun asked, his voice analytical, and I realized that, yeah, indeed he _must_ be.

Oh, crap.

 

I’m still thinking about all of this when, thanks to Murphy’s always beloved law, I run into DongHae while walking home from the office. He’s sharing a strawberry ice cream cone with a redhead man about his age and height, wearing a similar nondescript outfit. They look so… together, different but the same, it’s somehow disturbing. Maybe it’s just a fixed predisposition of my brain.

“Hey!” I say, trying to use a normal voice, wear a casual expression. It’s harder than you’d think when you’re observing every single detail in their posture and every twitch of their muscles.

He’s uncomfortable, that much I can tell. He looks everywhere but my direction, yet still keeps an eye on the man I can safely assume is HyukJae. The redhead’s always a step behind him, almost hiding from me and I mentally snort. As if _I_ was the guy he should be hiding from.

“So… How have you been? We’ve missed you” I say, and it’s not a lie. We _have._

“Uhm… Busy, I’ve been… Busy.” DongHae mumbles. And I notice he hasn’t introduced either one of us to each other—he doesn’t want to, of course. Why… Well, I can’t fathom, but I’ve figured by now that DongHae might be kind of crazy.

“We have to get together, soon. Do you have any time now?” I offer with the girls in my mind; they miss him and they don’t know a thing. They are worried. They deserve to see him.

DongHae, however, doesn’t seem to miss anybody, to want to know anything, to be worried about anybody, for he only tenses up and looks even _more_ awkward. He doesn’t deserve shit.

“Uhm… Maybe… Some other time... I’ll call you, alright?” DongHae says dismissively and then pulls HyukJae past me, hushing an authoritative _hurry, don’t look, let’s go_ that makes me raise an eyebrow as I blink and think… _Oh_.

Well... DongHae looks healthy, happy, in good shape.

Okay then.

…Asshole.

 

**# DongHae**

I am terrified.

I realized it yesterday afternoon. It was Sunday; we were smoking a cigarette together while listening to that sexy R&B album we both love so much. I was lying across de bed with my head and arms on his perfect torso and he was just resting his upper half on a bunch of pillows. HyukJae’s bed is the best—the dream bed we’d always wanted when we were students but couldn’t afford. Like everything else in his apartment, it matches my desires completely. He looked for my best interests even when we weren’t together, and that’s such a powerful aphrodisiac I can’t help but feel even more attached to him.

His right hand combed my hair gingerly while his left traced patterns on my pecks and stomach. The soft leather of his bracelet tickled softly, in the best of ways, and we were so relaxed we were on the verge of falling asleep.

That was precisely the point. We were cozy and  _happy_  and I thought… What if this is taken away from us? What if ChangMin or some of the  _others_  call the asylum and have me committed again? I mean, sure, I completed the  _treatment_  to its full extent, did everything they requested of me (and how did that work out, eh?) and came out as ‘healthy’—but even after all that, if they found out I am back with HyukJae, that he’s wearing the bracelet again, that we… well, we’re  _us_  again, no doubt they could contact the police and the clinic, even if HyukJae claims he’s with me willingly. They’d probably say it’s Stockholm syndrome or some shit like that. People will do anything to make you think you’re crazy when they don’t understand you, it’s in their nature. This is how they deal with the unknown.

However, this is how I got to the realization:  _we’re not safe here anymore_.

“Let’s go somewhere” I whispered, looking up to HyukJae without moving from my position. His fingers stopped moving among my brown locks but didn’t leave my head, his eyes widened and he tilted his head, surely wondering where this had come from.

“Where?”

“Wherever. Let’s leave. Let’s start somewhere fresh…”

My lip quivered, I could feel it. And I couldn’t help but feel like a little lost boy. Before, I would’ve never allowed HyukJae to see me like this, to  _have_ me like this. But things have changed; even with all the love we carry for each other it’s impossible for us not to have changed. The important thing is, that after all these changes, all this time, we still like, love, adore each other. Maybe it was in the stars… maybe we are just stubborn, stupid and in love. Who knows?

HyukJae thought about it for… quite a short time, actually. I was expecting full-on silence for the rest of the day, but before I could even get up to make some coffee he spoke again: “Okay. I have money saved up. Let’s buy a car, pack up and go wherever we like.”

“Just like that?” I asked, bewildered.

HyukJae looked around as if I was talking nonsense to someone else in the room.

“Well, did you expect a twelve-step plan or something like that?” he raised a cocky eyebrow and my mouth dropped open.

“Excuse me? Is this how you talk to me now?” I snapped, albeit playfully, turning so I was on top of him, straddling his perfect hips. My fingers wrapped around his wrists and pulled them above his head.

“Are you gonna do something to _educate me?_ ” he dared, his voice spicy and so hot it made my skin vibrate.

And I thought, _maybe this is better_. Maybe I like that HyukJae can play his part yet still challenge me… It keeps things interesting. This grown up version of HyukJae has kept me on my toes since day one. He’s bolder, more confident, and it’s _so_ sexy. Sometimes I look at HyukJae, see the sparkle in his eyes, and I just forget how to breathe—he’s perfect.

And he’s _all mine._

“Don’t tempt me.”

But in his lust-glazed eyes and wanton smirk I could see that it was all he wanted.

So that was all about the whole moving subject.

 

…Until today, Monday, when my boyfriend first thing in the morning brought me some boxes, told me to call in sick to work and start packing.  

There isn’t much in my apartment—until HyukJae, I led a simple quiet life, and most of my valuable memories (all of which involve HyukJae) are in the storage room.

We decide to go there only after we’ve packed both our apartments in case we run in to any of the ‘other owners’ (they don’t usually go down there, but who knows if we might be that unlucky), and so we start throwing things in boxes, mainly my books and decorative stuff that I’m fond of (the rest I guess we’ll give to charity for sell or something). There aren’t many memorabilia here either—I don’t keep many family photos, and the ones I do have are in the storage. I do have some of _the group_ , though, the most recent being from KyuHyun’s birthday. They all look so _happy_ in that one, except me. Of course. I was perturbed because I’d just seen HyukJae that night at the restaurant.

I understand that I was never out of his reach, all those years I was merely waiting for HyukJae to come pick me up and pull me away from my slumber state. It had to be him in order for the cycle to be complete, so it can really work out now. It’s always been about him, really; winning him, losing him, trying to forget him, having him back, starting again… It’s always been about Lee HyukJae.  

 _Throw them away_ I say when he respectfully asks what to do with the photos. I don’t want them anymore. There’s no more ‘ _them’_ when it’s just _‘us’_. ‘The future excludes, exceeds, outlives the present’. It’s a philosophical phrase we came up with back in High School, during a homecoming dance. We were high out of our senses, yet we discovered that simple truth of the universe, and we decided that whatever happened from then on, we’d never look back.

And we haven’t, not till this day; we never will.

“I’m glad you went on and became a teacher, Hae. It’s the best thing you could do.” He’s holding one of my marine biology books, the heaviest and best of them all, and running his thin fingers over the cover adoringly.

I snort. “Police, doctors your family and mine would disagree.”

“But you love it, and you’re great at it, and they don’t know what the fuck they are talking about.”

There’s fieriness in his voice, mixed with a hint of sadness, very concealed but apparent at the same time. I turn towards him. “Are you okay? Are you sad? Did you like it here _that_ much? Because we don’t have to move if you-”

“I’m not sad because of me, Hae!” He snaps, chuckling with an incredulous expression on his face. HyukJae is such an open book to me; I can read the subtlety of his emotion-shift as if they were written all over his forehead. That, however, doesn’t mean I can always comprehend the nature of his reactions. “I’m sad ‘cause I feel guilty, okay?”

I frown. I really don’t understand.

“I’m guilty because I’m the reason you have to leave your work, and your new friends, and your new life, and even though I don’t regret a thing that’s happened I still feel guilty because I’m human and that’s what I’m like. I want you to be happy, to have everything, me included. So I feel bad taking stuff away with you, even if we _have_ to do it for our own good.”

I stare at him, mouth slack, letting his words sink in for a moment before a smile slowly stars curving up my lips. I don’t think I’ve done many things right in this life—in all honesty people have called me a childish egoistic monster more times than I can remember. And I’ll be the first one to admit that I haven’t been the best person either. If we did a scale of my deed, it’d certainly be tipped towards de ‘bad side’…

_“Come here, you idiot” I whisper, grabbing his face and roughly pulling him towards me to kiss him, to taste his mouth and revel in the chocolate-like flavor of complete adoration._

…So I must’ve been the most honorable most kind person in my past life, because I sure as hell don’t know how I got to be so damn lucky to get the most amazing person in the world to love me so fully as HyukJae does.

 

**# HyukJae**

One day, the third day since we’ve started packing to be more precise, DongHae asks me about those eight years he never wanted to hear about before. He says he wants to know now; he wants to travel with me and feel what I felt during that time. He wants to relive it next to me, so we can share it.

Our relationship is different now, but the same still. I mean, it’s the same love, I guess, the same feeling. So even if the power scale is calibrated a bit differently than before, who cares? It’s still my DongHae and I’m still his HyukJae.

We try to keep the pace of the packing going, but soon we start to relent as the words start to come out of my mouth.

“After you were… uhm…” I choose my words carefully, trying not to seem petty about the whole ordeal. “Taken away, I was a mess. I didn’t know who I was, I wanted to forget you but at the same time I didn’t, and I didn’t know how to begin either. It continued to hit me. That year I was pure chaos… I drank, and partied and—you know, the cliché stuff. There’s a reason why it’s a cliché, you know? It’s the easiest way to forget.

“Fuck, I was so stupid, Hae. I was just a kid and I never knew anything different and I though…” _Maybe this isn’t normal, maybe the others are right, maybe this will end up killing us, maybe, maybe, maybe… “_ I thought stupid things and got scared. I shouldn’t have but I…” I take a deep breath, and close my eyes, trying to shy away those uncomfortable memories. “It doesn’t matter anymore, after months of barely living I decided I couldn’t let myself die like that, for that I might as well have killed myself. So I thought about how I could get you back, how we could repair what had shattered so badly.”

I pause, thinking about how to get out the next part, the hardest to admit, the one that I am still dubious if I want DongHae to know about.

“I went to look for you at the mental health clinic.” DongHae’s eyes widen and he gasps, but I continue nonetheless. “They wouldn’t let me see you. They wanted me to start therapy myself. Some crap about post-traumatic disorder due to abuse or whatever—all nonsense. So I ran. I hid myself from my family and friends and focused on completing my studies. As I told you, I switched from pre-med to psychology, not only because of the shorter period and flexibility at work, but also because I… I wanted to understand us better. Everyone seemed so determined to make us feel like mentally deranged… I wanted to know _why_. I wanted to know how we could make it work.” I smile fondly, looking at him with disgusting gooey eyes I reserve just for him.

“And then I started tracking you down. It wasn’t easy, let me tell you. You cleared your record pretty neatly and moved into the last town I’d search for you.”

He smiles somewhat proudly and I feel like kissing away that sexy smug look from his mouth. “And then I did. I found you and came and took you and now I’m the happiest person on Earth because I have you back with me, where you belong.”

We share a charged look, filled with all the emotions that even though we’ve tried, we’ve failed to express because they simply can’t be communicated through words. DongHae’s expression swifts to something terrible and pained. It stabs my heart with guilt and empathy.

“What’s wrong?” I say, my voice wrecked with worry.

“I love you, I really do but… You had those feelings once… And it was _hard,_ likeyou don’t even fathom. What if you want to leave me again?” he asks, his voice trembling with so much insecurity I can bear to listen to him anymore so I pull him into a suffocating embrace that feels searing and scorching, like the most eternal promise ever made.

“That will never happen” I assure him, hugging him against me with all the adoration I have for my DongHae. “I love you.”

He breathes in deeply, sniffing my hair and brushing the nape of my neck with his playful fingertips. Out of nowhere I suddenly remember that when I was a teenager I wished I had met DongHae at Mokpo, when he was a little kid that ran around without worries or prejudices inside his tiny head that would later be messed up beyond repair. In time, that fantasy was buried under other worries, but now that I recall it I look down to the man in my arms and feel tingling warmth spread through my chest. This is the closet I’ll get, I think, to that pure-hearted DongHae I never got to know.

And you know what? It’s enough.

“Okay” he mumbles finally, his voice sounding like a little kid’s who’s just stopped crying. “I love you too, Hyukkie.”

 

**# Jessica**

“It’s been a week” I say to KyuHyun-oppa over the phone.

He dismisses it with a casual, “A week is nothing by his new standards.”

So I try not to worry.

 

“It’s been _two_ weeks” I text ChangMin, using no emojis at all to let him now I’m serious.

He doesn’t reply for a long time—something usual for ChangMin who’s not fond of being glued to his cellphone every waking second, but it still gets on my nerves. When he does answer, it’s with a skimpy “He’s an asshole, give it up, kiddo.”

This time, I can’t help but worry. 

 

“Come on, it’s been three weeks and he hasn’t showed up to school!” I nearly shout that day at our weekly _Girl’s Brunch._

Is nobody worrying about him but me? Maybe their resentment is getting in the way of their caring, but it still isn’t right. DongHae’s our friend. We should at least drop in to check on him. What if that HyukJae guy smothered him to death and now our sweet friend is lying lifeless in a ditch?

“Well, they fired him of course” SeoHyun clarifies and I roll my eyes.

“Not that it matters because he doesn’t give a shit, apparently” SooYoung adds, having a sip of the beer it’s totally too early to be having. “Seriously Jess, leave him alone. He’ll come begging when he’s ready. You know how stubborn he can get.”

My mouth hangs open in astonishment. Really, how can I be the only one worried about Lee DongHae?

 

_It’s been four weeks_ , I tell myself as I use the sparekey I had to beg KyuHyun to give me ( _“He isn’t worth it, Jess. He might as well be dead to us”_ he’d said before caving and handing me the key anyways).  _You have to do this, be brave_ I think as I enter the apartment, prepared for the worst but only finding emptiness instead.

Seriously, there’s nothing in here.

No furniture, no appliances, no clothes, just a big empty space that feels cold and humid and I want to run and cry and ask what the hell is going on.

“Oppa?” I try, feeling stupid because it’s clear nobody lives here anymore.

Suddenly it hits me that I’ve only been here twice before, this being the third time, and the realization leaves me somewhat uncomfortable, as if I’m stepping on a line here. I understand that DongHae isn’t my friend anymore, perhaps he never was; perhaps that wasn’t even the real DongHae at all.

It occurs to me that DongHae to us has been like this: only a door that we thought lead to somewhere else, except that when we open it we see that there’s nothing behind it, that DongHae wasn’t even behind the door in the first place. All this information makes my head spin. I feel confused, dazed as I walk around for no reason in particular, feeling chills as my heels click-clack against the tile floor. I rub my arms trying to shoo away the sudden cold that crawls into my skin.

I’m about to leave, when something catches my eye. It’s a book on the kitchen counter, shining against the slick granite. I pick it up because what else I’m going to do in this desolated space that feels like another dimension to me?

It’s opened, as if someone had to leave while they were still going through it. And the page it’s opened at has only one giant picture on it, the faded colors tingling in contrast with the following black page with white text on the other page that claims “Honor Roll” (probably the header to the next section).

The picture shows two boys and, of course, one of them is DongHae.

I raise my eyebrows, impressed. That DongHae must be at least thirteen years younger than the one I met, and is wearing a posh private school uniform that screams money even if it’s all wrinkled, with no tie and sleeves rolled up to the elbows. That DongHae is also  _blonde_ , a reddish-cherry blonde that falls in spikes around his pretty face. He’s wearing eyeliner, which emphasizes the predatory look he’s giving the camera. It clashes completely with the sweet, cheerful brunette image I have of my friend. It’s like they are two completely different people. He’s sitting on a bleacher with his legs spread, and one level below there’s a redhead kid between them.

He looks familiar from somewhere, but I can’t pinpoint exactly from where.

The redhead’s giving the camera a sultry look, his plump lips parted as one of DongHae’s hands holds his neck while the other is tangled in the hair of the other teen, pulling it softly and spreading his fingers so you can see the red locks twisted around those slim fingers. The pose is suggestive and possessive and it makes me feel uncomfortable to think that these are High School kids, whatever grade they might’ve been in. To me they look more like wild animals than human beings.

Under the photo there’s one of those typical yearbook funny phrases and quotes, this one announces why there’s a whole page dedicated to these two: ‘ **Couple of the Year:** Badass Gay Icons Lee DongHae  & Lee HyukJae.  **Most Likely to Survive High School Romance:** YES (at least until DongHae goes insane and commits murder-suicide, but you never know.)’ And even though I know it supposed to be amusing, I can’t help but feel there’s a bit of truth in the statement.

DongHae’s sharp menacing glare confirms it.

I leave the yearbook on the table (I would never take it with me, I couldn’t), and go without looking back, closing the door behind me and not worrying to lock up (the apartment is obviously empty, so why bother).

Maybe the others are right.

Maybe the DongHae we know is dead, and we’ll never have him back.

Maybe… No, not maybe.

He _is_ with _HyukJae_ now.

 

**# T H E  E N D**

The day is perfect for this drive: sunny but not scorching, with the speed of the car producing a nice breeze that hits their faces, the tires rolling across the asphalt smoothly.

They are such a cliché, driving into the sunset on a luxurious convertible with the top down, but they don’t care. They like to feel as if they were in a movie; they like to feel like a billion Won. And as HyukJae drives the expensive car and DongHae sips on his soda, they relax and for once don’t think about anything. They are just where they need to be right now.

HyukJae bites his lip as he takes the left turn in a narrow intersection of the otherwise monotonous highway. The atmosphere is light and easy, but he knows DongHae still hasn’t forgiven him for what happened the day before.

“I’m sorry I left the yearbook behind. I know you loved that thing.”

DongHae snorts. “I told you to stop looking at it and put it in the box. I told you you’d forget it. You didn’t listen. I don’t like you disobeying, HyukJae. You know that.”

HyukJae rolls his eyes—something he definitely wouldn’t have dared do ten years ago, and then pouts with fake innocence covering his features and making him look quite enticing. “I’m sorry, can I make it up to you in any way?” he says, his right hand sneaking to touch DongHae’s knee and then slowly inching his way up his thigh…

Until DongHae harshly slaps the hand away, the fucker.

“Don’t worry, I’ll punish you later” DongHae replies dryly. From the corner of the eye he sees HyukJae’s cunning grin and inevitably he mirrors it.

In the end, even fuck ups like them can get a decent happy ending if they work for it.

If not, they can always go steal somebody else’s.


End file.
